


From Glowing Embers Rise

by Mangacat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-25
Updated: 2012-09-25
Packaged: 2017-11-15 02:29:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,613
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/522161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangacat/pseuds/Mangacat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after Castiel takes Lucifer away, Sam gets his wings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Glowing Embers Rise

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings/Spoilers: S7, language
> 
> A/N: Written for the hc_bingo prompt: wings. Betaed by the wonderful candygramme despite tech!fail
> 
> Now illustrated by [quickreaver](http://archiveofourown.org/users/quickreaver) with [Sam's Wings](http://quickreaver.livejournal.com/105647.html)

Dean doesn’t really notice at first, but then the days when he stayed as sharp as a hunter should – _you’ve got to be on guard, Dean –_ they’re long gone. He’s vaguely aware that he spends more time staring into a bottle; making plans for how to make Dick pay for what he did to his family and is trying to do to humanity. But somehow, somewhere along the line, Dean has lost the ability to care about whether these plans actually get them somewhere or are just the futile, resigned internal ramblings of another bitter, burnt-out drunk.

He cares for Sam, he does, but things like concentrating on getting where they’re going and finding solutions to all those fucking problems while they’re on the run from everybody, they preoccupy him, and his brain doesn’t tell him all the little shit along the way. So while he keeps waiting for the other shoe to drop on Sam’s newly restored melon, which thankfully doesn’t seem to be happening after all, he barely notices how his brother has sweat running down his temples even in this sixty degree weather, how Sam starts to sleep on his stomach with all the blankets thrown down to his waist, how he folds himself into their not-the-Impala of the week and then sits ramrod straight as if there were a pack of razorblades embedded in the backrest. Sam’s eyes are clear and focused. They stop randomly wandering around, and his fingers trace the scar tissue in his palm lightly, habitual instead of desperate.

Those are the things that Dean processes through a comfortable fog of not-quite-ever sobriety. The other things only come back a few days and couple of states away from where Castiel is staring into a wall, when a raging thunderstorm clashes against the flimsy walls of their motel room, lighting flashing through the half closed blinds. They come back when Dean rears up on his bed with the noise of a half suppressed scream ringing in his ears, because no amount of Jack could possibly drown out the pain in Sammy’s voice. Sam stands behind his bed, one knee on the mattress, hair plastered against his forehead, arms wrapped around his naked torso. Dean only needs a split second looking at the thin, glistening line of blood running down his brother’s ribcage for his body to spring into action, suddenly helplessly tangled in the sheets. The next lighting strike hits somewhere close, illuminating the room with harsh, flickering lights and Dean stops dead in his tracks, because the shadows on the wall behind Sam are all wrong, and that can’t be… and then there’s a snap of thunder booming overhead, and it’s like the image is burned into Dean’s eyes and there is no doubt.

Behind Sam they’re fanned out against the wall, spanning the whole room. Shadowy wings, only visible for a couple of seconds, edges like glowing embers, like a thin line of wildfire crawling over a mountain ridge.

“Dean.”

He locks eyes with his brother and finds them clear and lucid, but terrified. Another small sound of pain slips past Sam’s lips and that’s what gets Dean moving again, past the image of flickering shadows that he barely dares to give a name in his head and towards his brother.

Dean crawls across the tiny space and onto Sam’s bed, embraces his brother. His hands come to rest of Sam’s clawed fingers where they’re ripping into the tan skin right over his shoulder blades. Sam lets go to wrap his arms around Dean like a vice, no doubt leaving bloody streaks on his t-shirt, but it’s not like Dean cares about that. He leans over Sam’s shoulder to survey the damage, but apart from a few shallow scratches and the thin trickle of blood, Sam’s back is smooth and unmarked. Another lightning flash makes Dean take a sharp breath as the shadowy feathers unfold again, right in front of his eyes, a whiff of brimstone in his nose. They don’t go directly into this brother’s body anywhere, and Dean can’t feel them when he lays his hands on Sam’s shoulder blades apart from a strange sensation, like static electricity tingling at his fingers. But the touch calms Sam considerably, slowing the heaving breaths and racing heartbeat against Dean’s chest, and gives him a moment to freak out in peace.

Dean breathes slowly and deliberately through his nose, mind blank for a few long seconds except for the futile longing for it to stop already, for them to finally catch a break. He feels stone-cold sober all of a sudden, uncomfortably so. Then his brain kicks into gear again, and he realizes that everyone they would have called about this is dead, or catatonic or otherwise unhelpful. It makes him want a drink and a bullet in his brain really badly. A hysterical sob escapes past his clenched teeth, but he’s beyond caring about the tears that suddenly stream down his face. He’s a Winchester, he’s been holding his own against all the supernatural shit his life has thrown at him since he could barely walk, but right now it just feels like it’s enough, and he’s not ready to deal with any of it anymore.

Seconds tick by while the storm outside slowly fades into a distant rumble, leaving the latest addition to their fucked up lives invisible once more. Dean pulls himself together slowly and draws away from Sam, scrubbing the salty residue from his face. No matter how little he wants to deal with another one of fate's curveballs, this is not going to go away, and Sam needs him to keep a level head right now.

“Sam, can you tell me… tell me anything?”

Sam bites his lip and looks away, sagging a little.

“I could… I could feel them, sort of, their weight is… it’s like sometimes they’re in the way of things even if nothing can touch them. But there were … whispers, I don’t know, I just got… I didn’t want to believe…”

Sam gets more agitated and Dean needs to get him down, get him to focus and he hasn’t got the damndest idea how.

“It’s alright, Sam, it’s fine. We’ll… we’ll figure it out. Can you… do anything with them?”

“No, I c…”

There is a snap and the familiar flutter of feathers that Dean associates with Castiel’s comings and goings, and Sam looks at him slack-jawed and glassy-eyed, his body trembling almost imperceptibly. At least he didn’t zap halfway across the country, so he counts that as a plus.

“Are you… do they hurt?”

Sam’s eyes focus on him with unfamiliar intensity, as if he just came back from being lost in his mind, and the thought leaves a pit in Dean’s stomach. That and the fact that Sam’s pupils are ever so slightly ringed with the same glow as the wings.

“It’s… no, not really. It was just this itch in the back of my head driving me… I… I’ve gotten used to blocking so much, and when Castiel took him away it was like, everything was clear and quiet for a moment, and I wanted to hold onto that. But, I… I couldn’t ignore it anymore,” Sam’s voice drops down to a mere whisper, “it’s like… they want to be acknowledged… I… I’m sorry…”

“Shhh, Sam, don’t… you’ve got nothing to be sorry for. Do you… feel any different?”

Sam opens his mouth to answer then seems to actually think on the question for a second before he says, “No… I. I don’t think I do, actually.  It’s weird, I…”

“No, no that’s good; we can work it out. So long as you don’t have any urges that are homicidal or exceptionally dickish like, I don’t know, smiting something, we’re good. We can work this out.”

A small smile spreads on Sam’s face at that, and he slowly sits down on the bed.

“This is fucked up, man.”

Dean huffs out a weary sigh and slides off the mattress to root around their duffels for the small first aid kit.

“Dude, when is it ever not? This is our life you’re talking about. Turn around so I can clean up your back.”

Sam obediently turns his back to Dean so that he can dab at the scratches. They’re not even the realm of the kind of scrapes they normally bother with, but he needs something to do with his hands, needs the contact to Sam, to make sure his brother is still all there, not going off the deep end in a weird twist of fate after everything they’ve been through. He half expects Sam to brush down the bedside lamp with an eight-foot-spanned wing, but then this is not how it works. It’s still strange to wonder whether he’s reaching through ethereal feathers when he moves to swipe a small cotton ball against the abraded skin. It almost feels like something brushes against his cheek, but he knows that’s bullshit, and Sam’s shiver is just a reaction to the sting of the disinfectant.

“Dean, what are we going to do?”

He draws a slow breath, slammed with a memory of a much younger Sam who looked up to him as the guy who had all the answers once a long time ago. He misses the simplicity of that lifetime more than he misses that Sam, but somehow, for this single moment, it makes everything better to feel again like the strong big brother who knows what he’s doing, who has a clear purpose in his life.

“I… don’t worry Sam, we’ll figure it out.”

And they will. They’re Winchesters, it’s what they do.

  



End file.
